It had been an accident.
He had been rushing down Charing Cross road, blindly making for Diagon Ally. No doubt mother was already waiting for him in the Hog’s Head “he had forgotten his school list at home “and she tended to get rather neurotic when he Apparated.
You’d think that after passing my Apparition test ‘with flying colors’, I would know how to Apparate from Spinner’s End to an ally in Muggle London. I’m a seventh year, for Merlin’s sake. She could put a little faith in my abilities.
Severus Snape glanced at the people around him. Happy Muggles darting from shop to shop, reading the bright “Back to School Sale!” signs, chatting and laughing and enjoying themselves. Severus scowled. They were so ignorant. He knew that Muggles believed only what they wanted to believe, but couldn’t they feel it? Everyone in the Wizarding world could. All of England had an air of holding its breath, waiting for something “ probably the metaphorical executioner’s axe “ to drop.
Nowadays, you go nowhere alone. You lock your door at night and keep it locked during the day. Your wand is always out, or at least somewhere you can easily reach. Nowadays, we live in fear.
Of course, Severus didn’t have to do any of that. Severus had friends in high places. And those friends happened to be the same people who were frightening the general population. Lucius Malfoy, Theodore Nott, Rosier, Avery, McNair...perhaps he wasn’t their equal just yet, but he would be. And until then he would bask in the protection of their association.
But for now, you are only Severus Snape, friend of the influential and well-to-do.
Shoving his hands in the pockets of his worn Muggle jeans, Severus Snape scowled. In this fashion, people’s gazes just slid over him. To them he was just another disaffected youth who dressed sloppily and scowled at the world.
Let them think that...Let them think I’m just another reckless Muggle teen, not worthy of their notice. Someday...oh, someday people won’t be able to keep their eyes off me. Someday, the world will know my name. Someday-
That was when he went crashing into a Muggle girl.
The impact sent her packages flying, and she landed flat on her arse on the ground. Severus was merely sent reeling, and he had to grab a lamppost for support. A moment later, when the world stopped spinning, he noticed the very flustered looking blonde on the sidewalk. She was average-looking “ no great beauty, like Narcissa Malfoy “ though she would be prettier if she didn’t look so shocked, peeved, and disheveled.
Snape’s first reaction was to apologize and offer his hand, and he almost did so. But he shut his mouth and clenched his fist quickly enough that the Muggle girl didn’t notice.
“Watch where you’re going!” he snapped instead.
She picked herself off the ground, looking annoyed. “I could tell you the same thing. Is it that hard to spot a girl with ten-thousand brightly colored packages?”
“How dare you talk to me like that!?” Snape snarled.
A look of irritated disbelief crossed her features. “Who are you to talk to me like that? The Duke of Discourtesy maybe? His Royal Rudeness? A lord, perhaps, or a prince?”
Snape smirked as nastily as he could. “Funny you should mention that last one...”
“There you are!” Eileen Snape was suddenly by his side, looking furious. “I told you to meet me at the Hog’s Head in five minutes! We don’t have time for you to be gallivanting off with strange girls!”
The unknown Muggle girl blushed. “He wasn’t gallivanting off with me; he knocked me to the ground and was very rude.”
Eileen to one look at the strange girl, turned up her nose, and sniffed. “Well, I’m sure most of the fault was yours.”
The girl’s mouth hung open, and she looked astonished.
Mrs. Snape smirked in a supercilious way that Severus knew he had inherited from her. “I wish you good day, miss.” With that, she grabbed his arm and marched him away.
Severus Snape never looked back.
He was sitting outside at the Muggle restaurant, sipping a cup of Earl Grey. Wizards had magic, extraordinary ice cream, house elves and Quidditch, but they couldn’t make a decent pot of Earl Grey to save their lives. And if any of the Muggles around him saw the title of his book “ Alchemy in the Modern World “ then he could always tell them that it was fiction. A lovely thing, the Muggle mind. It always believed everything but the obvious.
Everything was lovely today. Summer holiday meant no attempting to chop the beauty of Potions into small pieces that could be rammed down student’s throats. Summer holiday meant no laughingstock teacher, come to steal the Defense against the Dark Arts job (a.k.a. The-Job-Snape-Is-Perfectly-Qualified-For-But-Never-Gets). Summer holiday meant no annoying twinkle in Dumbledore’s eye, no Minerva gloating over her can-do-no-wrong Gryffindors, and no pretending to care about things he didn’t give a damn about.
And he had had Spinner’s End all to himself, since his parents had finally done the right thing and kicked the bucket. It was dilapidated and gloomy, and Severus felt ghastly just looking at it, but it was his. It had been in his parents’ will, though Snape would have gladly sold if he had enough money to buy anything else. However, without Tobias and Eileen Snape it almost seemed...like home.
It was summer hols; he had a house to himself, a fascinating book to read, and a cup of Earl Grey. The world was good.
“Excuse me...”
Snape put down the book, ready to sneer at whoever dared to interrupt him. “Yes?” he drawled, as coldly as possible.
The woman smiled almost sheepishly. “I’m sorry, but do you remember me by any chance?”
Snape sneered. Strange Muggle woman. How in the world would he remember her? “Not especially, no.” He went back to his book.
She sighed, and he heard her sit down across from him. “I’m truly sorry for interrupting you, but do you “ by any chance “ remember running into a young blonde girl, oh...five-ish years ago? A blonde girl that you happened to be incredibly rude to? And she “ in her retort “ asked you if-”
Snape had set down his book, and was staring at the woman. “If I was a prince, and I said-”
“Funny you should mention that,” they said in unison.
There was a short silence.
“Um...well...I never expected to see you again,” the Muggle woman said. Now that Severus could identify her, he recognized the blonde he had run into when he was sixteen. She had grown up the same way “ not particularly beautiful, but not ugly either. Just...average.
But...Oh Merlin. Sixteen. Sixteen was when he was up to his armpits in Dark Magic and Dark Wizards and Dark Lords. His students should count their lucky stars that he wasn’t the same man he was at sixteen. At sixteen he would have hexed anyone who stepped over the line into oblivion. Now he just assigned humiliating detentions and took points away. A man had to have some joy in his life, after all.
“I did not expect to see you again either,” Snape said calmly.
Sixteen...he had been on the fast track towards disaster then. The Dark Lord had offered glory, acceptance, and protection, and Severus had been too happy to sign his name beneath those who were rotting away in Azkaban. If it hadn’t been for Dumbledore, he would be there too. Of course, all he had done was sell his soul another master. A better one, yes, but still a master. Indebted to Dumbledore, indebted to the Dark Lord...Snape was beginning to wonder if he would ever be his own man.
The blonde smiled slightly. “Well, sorry to disturb you, I just wanted to find out if you truly were the bloke I remember.” She stood up, going to leave.
Before he could think about it, Snape blurted, “Wait!”
She stopped. “Yes?”
“Why do you remember me?” he asked, not really aware why he was asking this. He knew why “he had been a git to her. He had knocked her down and refused to help her up and treated her like scum. Why wouldn’t you remember someone like that?
The blonde fixed him with a quizzical stare. “You really want to know?”
Severus shrugged.
“I remembered you because you almost apologized and helped me up.”
He had nearly forgotten that momentary slip into humanity, and how quickly he had corrected himself. “Strange thing to remember,” he remarked frostily.
She blushed. “I know. But afterwards, when I thought about it, I always thought of that momentary thing. You were so rude, but something about your fleeting thoughtfulness told me that you weren’t absolutely heartless. There was a part of you that was kind, that was human, that wanted to help the poor girl you knocked to the ground. Perhaps only a small part, and perhaps your were trying your best to hide it, but it was still there.”
Severus sat there, stunned. He had been sixteen. The height of his cruelty, his anger, his violent tendencies. When he had been seventeen, he had taken the Dark Mark. And here was this woman telling him that in the midst of all, she had seen something human. Something kind. When his greatest goal was to torture her sort, a Muggle girl had seen something in him that no one else had.
The blonde blushed even more. “I always wondered, though...what did you mean by that comment about being a prince? Surely you’re not...really a prince?”
Snape snorted. “Definitely not. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you what I meant.”
She smiled bemusedly. “Are you an undercover agent or something?”
“Sort of. But I can’t explain that either.”
She sighed. “Can you at least tell me your name?”
“Severus Snape. Professor Severus Snape.”
“Oh a professor! What do you teach?”
“I can’t tell you that either.”
She sighed, annoyed. “Fine. Well, it was nice seeing you again, Professor Severus Snape. I must say that the second meeting was better then the first, though.”
She moved to go, but Severus held her back. “Wait! I never learned your name.”
Merlin’s socks man, have you misplaced your dignity somewhere? Why do you care about her name?
She smiled softly. “Christine. Christine Motley. It was nice talking to you, Severus Snape. I hope we meet again someday. And...You might want to think about showing that little piece of goodness more often. The glimpse I got was very nice.”
Christine Motley never looked back.
Severus Snape surveyed his new first year class. They were incompetent dunderheads “ no surprises there “ but there were a few that could be a little less incompetent with some instruction.
“You should be adding the tansy leaves about now. Do not forget that they must be sliced cleanly lengthwise, not torn into little shreds like Mr. Maxwell is demonstrating.”
The unfortunate Mr. Maxwell’s face flushed. “Sorry sir.”
“Ten points from Ravenclaw for being unable to follow directions, Mr. Maxwell. I honestly have no idea as to how you were sorted into your house.”
Maxwell’s face turned an unpleasant shade of chartreuse. “I’m sorry, sir,” he repeated in a stammer.
“Get more leaves, Mr. Maxwell, and begin again. If you are not finished by the end of the class, you will receive a zero. And do try and use what little brain you have this time around.”
Snape watched as Mr. Maxwell ducked down over his new tansy leaves, making the eerie torchlight gleam oddly on his blonde hair.
...Blonde hair that glinted in the sunlight. A rush of some warm emotion. A gentle smile. A furious female voice and clever retorts and an average-looking girl who notices extraordinary things...
Snape swept past the students and back up to his desk, pushing away the wayward thoughts. This was how it should be. Kindness and gentleness only inspired lackwits and slackers. If you indulged the slacking, you never got rid of it. An iron fist was the only way to run a classroom.
You might want to think about showing that little piece of goodness more often.
Ah...Christine Motley. It was amazing that Snape could even remember her name after so many years. But her words and her sentiment had stayed with him. She had spotted the small part of his integrity he hadn’t been able to hide. Dumbledore once said that a person can only hate as much as they have loved “so it made sense that in his greatest time of hatred, his love had been apparent.
But now...now he did not hate. Nor did he love. For the last year (Decade? Century? Eon?) he felt as if he had been encased in ice, or perhaps steel. Something cold and unfeeling that drove all emotion out of his heart. A place without even hatred. He went through the motions of life without actually living. Nowadays, he Did The Right Thing without caring.
Would she still see that good in him now?
“Professor Snape, sir, I’m done with my potion.”
Snape jerked out of his reverie to see Annabelle Hutchins holding up her flask. For a moment, the torchlight glinted in her eyes in a way that made Snape recall the warmth of another’s gaze.
I have killed, Christine Motley. I have murdered and tortured and maimed and done things that are too horrible to even feature in your worst nightmares. How could you have seen that goodness in me? How could you have taken such a small thing “ an impulse, an almost-kindness “ and remembered it? I was evil, Christine Motley; why did you have to spot the one shard of decency I could not hide?
“Sir...?”
It was for you, Christine Motley. All of it was for you. When I stood over some trembling first year and his ruined cauldron and wondered why I was doing this, why I was here, why I had chosen to rot away as a teacher of dunderheads “ I remembered you. I remembered that you had believed in me. That you had seen something in me that wasn’t cold or hard, something that was more Severus than Snape. I wanted to prove that you were right, Christine Motley. That I really was human, that I did have some humanity at some point in my life. The memory of your voice reminds me that I do have a heart beneath all these layers of black wool. The recollection of your smile prompts me to acknowledge that I have a soul like everyone else. You have kept me sane, Christine Motley, when I ought to have gone insane long ago.
“Sir? Excuse me, sir?”
After the first war, I saved my sorry hide in an act of selfish cunning. I was afraid of death then, afraid of Azkaban, afraid of what would happen to me when Igor (or some other Death Eater, they’re all the same) talked in order to save his own skin. I didn’t care about Muggleborns or Purebloods, for me the war was simply a byproduct of being influential and acknowledged. I would fight for whoever accepted me, gave me power, let me into their fold. The actual issues were for those who needed them.
But the Second War will come, Christine Motley. And I will be fighting on a different side. Not for Dumbledore “ oh no, that doddering old fool is no reason to risk my life and limb “ but for you. For all the average-looking Muggle girls who go shopping on Charing Cross road. For all those who notice that blossoming Death Eaters are not as evil as they seem. I will fight for every Muggle, simply because I owe you. I am a man of man debts; to Dumbledore I owe my life, to the Dark Lord my loyalty. But to you, Christine Motley, I owe my sanity, my heart, and my soul, which, when put together, outweigh all the gold in Gringotts.
“Professor? Professor Snape? Please, sir, I’m done with my potion...”
Severus jerked from his reverie, scowling at the unfortunate first year. “I heard you the first time, Miss Hutchins, leave it on the desk.”
Miss Hutchins nodded, placed her vial on the desk, and scurried back to her seat. Severus watched her walk away and felt his consciousness slip back into mental monologue.
...I have few regrets in my life, Christine Motley. I do not regret joining the Death Eaters, nor running to Dumbledore to save myself. I do not regret hexing James Potter all those years ago, or demanding that the Sorting Hat put me in Slytherin rather then Ravenclaw, as it suggested. I do not regret my cruelty and spite towards the general population of the world. I regret very little of the sordid tale that has been my life.
My only regret, Christine Motley, is that I could never answer your questions.
Once again, this is not a romance fic, was never meant to be a romance fic, and will never be a romance fic. If there's any mix-up, it's due to my inadequate writing, not to the storyline.
And leave a reveiw please? I like them more then Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans!
Collisions with Fate by Fabula_propono
Chapter Notes: Disclaimer I am most definitely not J.K. Rowling. Believe me, I check every day.
Author's Note
Please note that this story is not a romance fic, it was never meant to be a romance fic, and it will never be a romance fic. That is all.
Oh, and leave a reveiw please!